I miss dungeons.

Nobody plays dungeons anymore, which is a bummer because I want the dungeon tokens so I can buy dungeon gear for transmuting. Also, I find dungeons to be less stressful than fractals, and it's a pleasant break from wandering around the world looking for events. Is there any way we can make dungeons popular again? I miss dungeons.

I joined a friend's guild before as invited and the guild were so active in dungeon full runs where people repeat dungeon runs with various guildies bcos it was just fun to repeat plus rewarding..Sadly the guild died slowly after anet decided to change the looting system. ppl were divided and slowly parted .. not everyone into raids and fractal at that time.. some tried to continue to run dungeon but not many ppl interested anymore...Amazing to see how changing the loot system can kill a game like that. I left the guild too eventually. But there were great peak time and glorious in that guild and lots of nice memories.

@DiscipleofLaw.3796 said:
Nobody plays dungeons anymore, which is a bummer because I want the dungeon tokens so I can buy dungeon gear for transmuting. Also, I find dungeons to be less stressful than fractals, and it's a pleasant break from wandering around the world looking for events. Is there any way we can make dungeons popular again? I miss dungeons.

Set up an lfg and ppl will join. Waiting for an offer to pop up is the worst thing you can do. Be proactive.

I hear ya. Being proactive is definitely on the table. I'm just sayin' that, most of the time, I'll sit in LFG for so long that I forget I was even queued. I want dungeons to not be so dead. Maybe changing the dungeon loot system again will breathe life back into them?

With today's' meta's. It's not too hard to 2 man them (or sometimes solo). When I did do daily Dungeons. I usually just solo the easy paths with a lfg somthing like "p1, solo'n while I wait"
Or "p1, and mid boss, final boss, etc"

Dungeon tokens are still needed for the 1st generation legendaries and a few other achievements/collections. Some dungeons have good runes/sigils and get played for that. Usually finding a group for Ascalon or Twighlight isn't that bad.

Otherwise, just open an LFG, tell ppl what you want, i.e. tell them what path you want to run, if you want "only LvL80" or if "all are welcome", stuff like that. You might have to wait a few minutes, but the group will fill and you'll be on your way in no time. The LFG tool is great for theses things, use it, it helps

If you want X, and Y is needed to get get X, you also have to want Y if you really want X. If you don't want Y, you don't want X. It's easy.Pro: Build Templates, Dungeon Rework, UW contentContra: New Races, New Classes, New Weapons, Capes

When they added in Ascended gear/Fractals, Dungeons went down hill, and outside of selling paths or solo'ing them for cash, they weren't being done outside of a few niche guilds that preferred to do them. Now with the addition of Raids and with it Legendary armors, it put an even larger nail in coffin for Dungeons. Now all Dungeons are used for primarily is for skins, leveling, maybe a few achieves, and for those who still prefer them over the above mentioned things.

The way ANet could bring them back, is tie into them more stories (Living or otherwise.) add some neat highly sought after loots, and maybe even make, "Pristine Dungeon Tokens", a thing as a means to get Ascended versions of the current armor/weapons available from their respective dungeons. In addition, add in, "Dungeon dailies", that would award you with these PDTs, and function very similar to your Fractal daily reward system. These are just a few ideas to bring new life to Dungeons through very minimal changes/additions by ANet.

@Odokuro.5049 said:
When they added in Ascended gear/Fractals, Dungeons went down hill, and outside of selling paths or solo'ing them for cash, they weren't being done outside of a few niche guilds that preferred to do them. Now with the addition of Raids and with it Legendary armors, it put an even larger nail in coffin for Dungeons.

Actually, they were very active right until Anet took them out back and shot them because they didn't want them competing with fractals and raids (yes, they kind of reverted the rewards, but by that point most of the people who used to run dungeons had abandoned them en masse and never came back).

@Khanh.8159 said:
Did Arah a few days ago. So long for such low reward. No wonder no one play it anymore and Anet doesnt care either.

/Rant Yes, Arah is quite long for the new player, an experienced group can roll through it in about 20 mins. It also doesn't help that a lot of new players are very reluctant to skip things in the dungeon, but for the experienced player, it's not worth it to fight. I'm a very chill person, but if I get a group that does clear all for Arah, I usually drop because you're asking me to spend an hr or more per path for 1g (and it pretty much takes that long these days with skipping (not exploiting) as the number of experienced players has dropped significantly). Also, Arah is significantly harder than the other dungeons (and used to award heavily for it), and back at its peak, Arah required almost as many checks as raids do nowadays (5k AP, zerk, exotic, meta, exp, speed run or kick) and people were constantly selling paths. With so little people running them these days, you barely even see an experienced party, but the difficulty didn't change, so now everyone tries to do Arah, die a bunch at the beginning, and rage quit. But that's Anet's fault really. I love running Arah, but the reward is not worthwhile for the content. A huge issue is that there are numerous bugs that allow you to skip a majority of the content too that Anet never decided to patch, so it's worth 1g if you skip/bug literally everything, but not worth it if you don't skip directly to Lupi, and I feel like Anet just settled on a lower reward for the people who like to exploit. /Endrant

Otherwise, the other dungeons are fine for the content they offer, and groups fill really fast (unless new game content comes out, which is the same for all content).

@Aninika.6819 said:
/Rant Yes, Arah is quite long for the new player, an experienced group can roll through it in about 20 mins. It also doesn't help that a lot of new players are very reluctant to skip things in the dungeon, but for the experienced player, it's not worth it to fight. I'm a very chill person, but if I get a group that does clear all for Arah, I usually drop because you're asking me to spend an hr or more per path for 1g (and it pretty much takes that long these days with skipping (not exploiting) as the number of experienced players has dropped significantly).

Not skipping is generally the time-saving and better option when you're running any dungeon, let alone one as complicated as Arah. New players don't know what to expect, are less used to the tactics, and are most likely to go defeated (which may in turn lead to a party wipe) - it's just easier to clear the way and teach.

It's definitely about the reward and not the experience these days, for sure. But with the attitude you're expressing, I'm not sure I'd want you on my dungeon team at all, if I'm being honest.

Veterans in game pretty much have gotten everything they wanted from dungeon tokens if not all and as of now its purely for cosmetic honestly. Exotics are cheap cept for a few types, takes multiple dungeon runs and couple of days to get enough tokens to trade and most dungeon item cosmetic value is outdated. The designs on most item is simple and less intricated making it a less attractive reward for players to go back. New players probably never tasted dungeon since its difficult to get into one(lack of guidance too) and even if they do, will find it not rewarding for the time spent.

Being proactive helps sometimes, but my advice personally, don't fully rely on in game LFG; advertise on the map and try to get it running with players leveling there which levels should fall on the dungeons recomended level. And yes, you can run one without needing a full party provided you're well geared & the dungeon does not have x number of players requirement to complete (eg. Cof needs 4 person to get the gate open).Can easily 2man TA etc @ lv80.

Used to have dungeon as daily tho, but i think its removed? Probably its not efficient as it takes up a daily(task) and some players can't get it done if level requirement is not met.

I still play and teach dungeons, and there are pleanty of low levels and new players who want to learn. It can vary based on time and dungeon, but sometimes the LFG fills very quickly despite (or because) nobody else is offering runs. You won't often see meta speedruns like back in the day, and you will see people make stupid mistakes - but I've always thought cold efficiancy should be a Fractal thing, anyway.

While they are not as popular, people still play it. I mean the other day I even did an Aether, I was just going for blossoms for nightmares runes. Plenty of people still want the skins as well or currency for T1 legs. I agree it could be encourage better, but it's not completely dead.

@Odokuro.5049 said:
When they added in Ascended gear/Fractals, Dungeons went down hill, and outside of selling paths or solo'ing them for cash, they weren't being done outside of a few niche guilds that preferred to do them. Now with the addition of Raids and with it Legendary armors, it put an even larger nail in coffin for Dungeons.

Actually, they were very active right until Anet took them out back and shot them because they didn't want them competing with fractals and raids (yes, they kind of reverted the rewards, but by that point most of the people who used to run dungeons had abandoned them en masse and never came back).

Yeah, I'm sure excluding Dungeons from having they're own form of Ascended armor/weapons had no part in it, your right, it was the reversion of rewards and competing with other game content that did it. Not the not being able to get end-game gear from them.

@Aninika.6819 said:
/Rant Yes, Arah is quite long for the new player, an experienced group can roll through it in about 20 mins. It also doesn't help that a lot of new players are very reluctant to skip things in the dungeon, but for the experienced player, it's not worth it to fight. I'm a very chill person, but if I get a group that does clear all for Arah, I usually drop because you're asking me to spend an hr or more per path for 1g (and it pretty much takes that long these days with skipping (not exploiting) as the number of experienced players has dropped significantly).

Not skipping is generally the time-saving and better option when you're running any dungeon, let alone one as complicated as Arah. New players don't know what to expect, are less used to the tactics, and are most likely to go defeated (which may in turn lead to a party wipe) - it's just easier to clear the way and teach.

It's definitely about the reward and not the experience these days, for sure. But with the attitude you're expressing, I'm not sure I'd want you on my dungeon team at all, if I'm being honest.

That's perfectly fine with me if you do or don't run with me. I teach Arah runs and am a regular there, so if you do the dungeon and pug I'll probably end up in your group at some point, but whether I stay or leave is entirely up to me as it is to you. I don't kick anyone from runs as long as they're willing to learn. If anything you sound more toxic than me. At least I won't complain about it, I'll just drop lol.

@Odokuro.5049 said:
Yeah, I'm sure excluding Dungeons from having they're own form of Ascended armor/weapons had no part in it, your right, it was the reversion of rewards and competing with other game content that did it. Not the not being able to get end-game gear from them.

Of course lack of ascended rewards had to have an impact on dungeon popularity, On the other hand, since we do know that dungeons were really active (a lot more active than fractals, actually) up until the point of reward rework, we can easily see that it was not the deciding factor at all. Quite the opposite - as long as dungeons were more rewarding than fractals, people were happily doing them over fractals, even if the latter offered end-game gear dungeons lacked.

The whole point of a social game is to play with the people you want to play with, not be forced to play with the people you don't.

I find dungeons much better content than fractals. It is a real shame that they dropped them.
It feels like it is done out of pure design laziness in my opinion. Making a single fractal map seems like it takes much less effort than a full dungeon

I don't think it's design laziness. I think they are trying to optimise allocation of thier resources so they can cover most part of game .. we hv LS, raids, wvw, pvp, story progression, fractals.. etc etc..
They are currently testing low men challenging content via fractal.. I am not sure if it really working well.. . I still reckon dungeon is better bcos it will cover wider range of players type.. idk.
I'm very sure that. Many will be jumping in joy if next patch is a dungeon patch .. but no big expectation for this hehe

Given hints a few times they don't have resources or 'manpower' to spare sadly. Higher end fractals does have a story tied to it and length similar to a dungeon. But there are always some which felt its unnecessary and a waste of time. Can never please the crowd and don't have the resources to cover or expand every content. At least that's how I see it atm, only can hope they can offer more.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:
That's not true. People do dungeons all the time. They are even guilds/loose-associations of players who run a full gamut of dungeons daily.

I haven't seen anyone in my 5 guilds or my friendlist set foot in a dungeon since HoT, so I don't think people do dungeons "all the time" either.

Are you sure that your 5 guilds plus friendslist is representative of the entire community? There are something like 6 million accounts or more. There are probably 50-100k players on at peak periods and many more who play the game regularly.

As I mentioned in the paragraph you quoted, there are actual guilds who organize specifically to do 8 paths per day (as well as looser associations of players and folks who do all the paths). Guilds with newer players tend to do more dungeons, for reasons I hope are obvious.

Probably the biggest issue is not how many people have an interest in doing dungeons, but how many people put up LFGs. I know my core group almost never does; if we have room for one more, we four-person and have someone's alt account leech. One friend & I went through a period of duoing 5-8 paths per week (sometimes more). It was simply easier for us to coordinate us two than to worry about the grab bag nature of PUGging.

People who want to do dungeons still often feel like newbies (perhaps in the game generally or just about the specific path, e.g. someone wanting to run a path new-to-them for the achievement). Whatever the reason, a lot folks don't feel comfortable starting the own LFG. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if 20 people are all looking at 8 pm EDT to do a dungeon, but none of them post an LFG so all 20 go away disappointed.

Yet another potential problem is that the LFG interface is a mess. I'd rather see a single dungeon 'channel', allowing people a radio-button choice for path (that depends on having selected the dungeon).

tl;dr

Plenty of people do dungeons regularly.

That doesn't mean that these are groups that are easy to find or join, due to barriers, including the UI and human psychology.

"Face the facts. Then act on them. It's ...the only doctrine I have to offer you, & it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, ...FACE THE FACTS. THEN act." — Quellcrist Falconer